Anyway, between those two extremes was one test drive where I asked the dealer how safe the car was. His answer surprised me:

Well, there are two parts to safety. I think you’re asking about passive safety – air bags, steel beams, etc. – which is important, and this car has. But there is also active safety – how nimble is this car at avoiding an accident to begin with?  – and it’s good there, too.

I thought that was pretty interesting. And then, later this evening, when I picked a random Malcolm Gladwell article from my Instapaper queue to read, the article turned out to be about auto safety. From the article:

Most of us think that S.U.V.s are much safer than sports cars.   If you asked the young parents of America whether they would rather strap their infant child in the back seat of the TrailBlazer or the passenger seat of the Boxster, they would choose the TrailBlazer.   We feel that way because in the TrailBlazer our chances of surviving a collision with a hypothetical tractor-trailer in the other lane are greater than they are in the Porsche.   What we forget, though, is that in the TrailBlazer you’re also much more likely to hit the tractor-trailer because you can’t get out of the way in time.   In the parlance of the automobile world, the TrailBlazer is better at “passive safety.  ” The Boxster is better when it comes to “active safety,” which is every bit as important.

There are, of course, many more variables to the Boxster-Trailblazer comparision – the most obvious one being the driver – which Gladwell does go on to describe. (He also goes on to discuss the underlying psychology, and it’s a great read.)

But while I continue to shop for cars, this is something I will now keep in mind, and something I thought to share with you too. When thinking about car safety, think of it as a combination of passive and active safety. When it comes to the safety of the car, don’t forget about your ability to control it. Your life – and mine – is depending on it.

(Click here to read the full Malcolm Gladwell article.)

- Ray Magliozzi, co-anchor of Car Talk

In the end, his body failed but his spirit didn’t. He was always positive and upbeat, and when he found out he had three months left to live, he made the strongest effort he could to make the most of the time he had left.

One of the things he did in that time was write a goodbye message, of sorts, to his family and friends. He called it his “basic life philosophy”, and it sums up nicely the kind of person that he was. He posted it, along with a lot of other writings, to a website he kept on Geocities. Unfortunately, Geocities was recently shut down, so I don’t know how much – if any – of that writing still remains.

Luckily, I saved Vince’s goodbye message, and so I’m reprinting it here on my blog in both an effort not to lose it, and to share it with you. Whether or not you knew Vince, he was a wonderful person, and wherever he is right now, I bet he wishes the best for you.

My Basic Life Philosophy

Hi All,

Now a number of you have been asking these “What is you’re view on life”, “How do you cope”, etc… and so what you are about to read is basically an email concerning my some core aspects to my basic life philosophy. These ideas did not appear over night, nor were they the result of simply my recent cancer experiences. My life philosophy, quite frankly, has been forged by life itself. I have always explored, thought about and challenge life to its limits. I have had many ‘successes’ AND many ‘failures’. But most importantly, I have learned how to get on with life.

Now as for my outlook on life… what I am about to write about concerns the matter of figuring out what things in life are worth stressing over…

Core to my general life philosophy is this:

If there is some situation in life that I feel ‘sucks’ I always have AT LEAST 1 of 3 things I can do.

1. Change the situation
2. Accept the situation
3. Exit the situation

The simple realisation that I have at least one of these options available to me makes things a whole lot simpler. The situation can now be addressed in a straightforward manner. Of course, figuring out which of the three is possible / the best solution is the tricky part .

Take for example, “My job sucks”….

First, I can try to identify things in my job that I can change (improve relationships with boss & coworkers, ask for more meaningful tasks, proactively find better things to do at the company, etc…)

But there may come a point where I (a) can’t think of anything I can actually change, or (b) can identify things I ‘could’ change, but the effort required just isn’t worth it. As I mentioned in my earlier email, we can act and change many things in our lives, but our influence does have limits. When our attempts to change things face resistance, we encounter stress. With (b) we realise that not everything is worth the time or stress.

At this point, I look at the situation as ask myself, should I accept this “sucky job” or should I exit (i.e. quit)?

- There are many reasons to accept (some better than others)
- Perhaps the job market is really horrible, I need the money, I’m learning more here than I could anywhere else, I believe in what I am doing, I still get to serve fries to this cute girl who comes in every Tuesday etc.

But if I figure there’s no point in accepting the situation, the I’d quit! (why waste my time at a joint like this???)

Now this Change/Accept/Exit philosophy is very general and can work at all levels (from the smallest situation – say a small dilemma at work, to the ultimate situation of all – life itself).

For example, you can have a small problem at work which you decide you can’t change… but that doesn’t mean you have to quit your job (which could still be quite cool).

Anyway, my ultimatum that I decided long ago is this: that ONLY in the ultimate situation, life itself, will I NOT EXIT voluntarily (i.e. commit suicide).

Once I put things in this perspective, it simplifies things. What can I change, what can I get out of, and what do I have to accept.

There are some things that I have to accept. Accepting them might not always be easy. But in the end, accepting them brings peace of mind. And by looking at the three options, it more readily allows one to come to the conclusion about what must be accepted.

Some people may think that my current situation is particularly difficult to deal with. However, I usually find it fairly easy to act on the Change/Accept/Exit options with “bigger problems”, like those that I’ve been facing lately with regard to my health. (It usually is the smaller things that are tougher to decide if they can be changed…. and this is when all our internal stress gets generated.)

Now I honestly feel that tough relationship situations are some of the toughest situations to figure out:

Change things? you really can’t simply choose to change another person…

Accept things? you don’t want to just get walked over

Exit? do you really want to give up on the romance or deep relation with another person?

These are tough questions… I think for me, I’ve found that I’ve accepted a lot in some relationships… disappointments can occur, mistakes are made, misunderstanding happen… but I accept and forgive… and try to love and communicate to the best of my abilities. However, there is only so much I can do to influence another person and I really don’t want to *try everything* to influence another person, for they are their own person. At best, I think one can only “do unto the other, what that other would like done unto them”… we can advise, help in manners that are asked, and hope the person can grow, but not take things personally if things don’t change. Personally, I find in relationships, often the more one tries to directly change the other person, the worse the situation gets…

It is a slippery slope though. At what point does one stop accepting and simply exit? A very tough question. And of course this is why couples can sometime oscillate between the together and apart states. But I guess, if the relationship finally ends, then why should we burden ourselves with the past… accept it. It can’t be changed and we’ve already exited the situation. Perhaps we can analyze it and learn from it. But in the end, what’s done is done, and we just have to get on with our lives….

Again I generalise these notions to other aspects of life.

Take another C?A?E? situation

We’re outside and it starts pouring rain! We’re getting soaked!

1. We don’t have the ability “right now” to change the situation of “pouring rain” (our influence has its limits) – although science and technology may be making some progress in this field

2. We are getting wet. Is there something we can do about this?

Umbrella? aww shucks! it’s leaky! can we improvise something? doesn’t look like it.

Run for shelter? aww shucks! we’re in a big grass field now we could get mad! we could start crying “it’s not fair!” we could curse whatever god we choose… but for me, I don’t see much point.

…(I never try to let my feelings get the best of me. I’m of the opinion that feelings are there to help guide decisions & actions, but it is inevitably up to “me” and not my emotions to choose my response to any situation.)…

Or we could accept that we’re gonna get really wet, and make the best of things… you know, roll around in the mud, have some fun, perhaps set up an irrigation network or something… learn something from the situation so that next time it won’t be as bad for us (or others) – i.e. let’s build a shed so when it rains no one will get wet… lets make sure to carry a better umbrella when the skies are cloudy and dark… and perhaps one day, we’ll actually be able to figure out how to control the weather

But until then, all we can do is accept what we must. We’re gonna get soaked.

So, as I explained to some friends already, right now I’m getting soaked. And all I can do is this: Do my best at making the best of it.

Anyway, hope that gives you some insight into me and perhaps helps you out in someway.  I’d love to talk / chat / email / etc…but also understand that you’re all busy with your own lives. Hopefully we’ll be able to meet up again sometime in person. Until then…

Stay safe and have fun!

Vince =D

p.s…. hope this philosophy seems fairly straightforward to ya. And yeah, I didn’t develop this philosophy all by myself… over the years I’ve done my share of thinking AND reading AND living AND learning.

“God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
- Reinhold Niebuhr

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”
- Albert Camus

This is the most recent of my many attempts to get back to blogging after a long, long, long overdue hiatus.

It’s past 1am. And I’m far too tired to write a proper post that is interesting enough for you to spend your time on. So I’ll use this small note to mark my intention to start blogging again, and hopefully keep it going this time!

Thanks for sticking with me, reader. Talk to you soon.

If I were to chart out how often I’ve blogged since first jumping on the bandwagon five years ago, I think it’d look something like this:

It's gotten so bad it's negative blogging

I intend to get back into blogging one day. But for the time being, you’ll find me on Twitter. Maybe I’ll find you there too. To keep up with Twitter on the go, I’ve been using a Windows Mobile app called Twikini.

Twikini has an interesting way to pay for it. To keep using the app after the 14-day trial, either you can give them $5, or you can write up a blog post with your thoughts and keep using it for free. Hopefully, in the long run, this post goes further than 500 pennies would have.

Because who wouldn't want to know what Ryan Seacrest is up to?

To be honest, if there’s any been a Windows Mobile App that’s worth paying for, it’s probably this one. So far, Twikini has been a model for how mobile apps should be done on that platform.

• It’s fast, and doesn’t lock up your device if left running
• It has an Exit command (THANK you!)
• It has clear keyboard shortcuts
• It has options
• It has themes
• It looks nice

The only thing that could make my experience better would be if there was a companion app to Twikini on my desktop or on the web, that kept my read tweets in sync. Kind of like how some RSS feed readers work. But as is, Twikini on my phone and TweetDeck on my computer has been nothing short of a great overall experience to me.

President-elect Obama lived in my neighborhood, Capitol Hill, briefly as a baby:

http://www.capitolhilltimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=26&SubSectionID=248&ArticleID=27447

As you can see, I’m digging pretty deep for reasons to get past the gloomy weather here right now. Seriously Seattle, why do you hate sun so?

The weather in parts of Siberia is currently better than it is in Seattle.

It feels like we’re still fresh into the new year, but in another twenty days or so we’ll be halfway through 2008. Amazing! Having a work routine, combined with the lack of a life change every four months that co-ops used to give, has really made time fly. I started the year with some commitments to keep on top of the quickly changing calendar, and I’m interested in how they’ve panned out so far.

Reading

This year I’ve finished reading eight books, which places me about three months behind in the 50-book challenge. Doh! From what I have finished so far, though, I’ve had the good luck to have some really great reads. Since the last blog post, it’s been all winners:

• Flow
• Microserfs
• The Hobbit
• The Tipping Point
• Learning to See Creatively

I’ll be writing about them soon.

Hobbies

I bought a new DSLR camera earlier this year and photography’s been a fun new hobby. I’ve set up a Flickr account and hope to post to this blog about some of what I’ve learned so far.

Weight training isn’t much of a hobby, but for a few months this year I worked out with a personal trainer, so that definitely made it an interest. Unfortunately, the learned mental discipline outweighed the tangible benefits, and I need a more flexible routine, so I’m back to training alone and hopefully well on my way to returning to my natural Greek-God like physique. Right.

Travel

My trip home to Toronto was the first after a year and a half, and man did it feel good to be back. It was definitely great because of the people – my friends, my family – but I realized how much I miss being in a big city. And it sure was reinforced when I visited New York City over Memorial Day weekend. I love New York. And I loved every minute of my trip. More on that soon.

What Else?

A lot else, I suppose, but it’s time for this writer to head to bed. Feels good to be hitting the post button again, though. Hope all is amazing on your end.

Personally, I had mixed opinions about this one. Like the Daily Show, it was hilarious, and also like the Daily Show, it made me learn more about US politics than I’ve ever learned from CNN.

But that’s just the problem: because it’s neither a purely comedic read nor serious educational material, it can’t really nail either arena whole-heartedly. You might learn more from an actual textbook, and you’ll probably laugh more by reading Dave Barry.

Overall, I’d say it’s worth a shot for its bits of genius. I really liked the introduction by Fake Thomas Jefferson, about the constitution and the forming of America. So here’s what to do: read the first few chapters next time you’re at the bookstore. If you’re a big fan of the show, stick around for the rest, otherwise I don’t think you’ll miss too much.

(Congrats TZ!)

Link:
http://seattlest.com/2008/02/28/seattlest_pix_0_203.php